Recently watched the short film, Hawaiian Soul, at the Hawaii International Film Festival online. It is the story of George Helm, a leader among those who fought to save Kaho’olawe, one of our sacred Hawaiian islands. He speaks of the first time he heard the land cry as he watched the bombing of Kaho’olawe, while digging his toes into the Moloka’i dirt. The picture below is Sailor’s Hat on the island of Kaho’olawe. It is the site of a 500 mega ton bomb meant to simulate a nuclear explosion. The damage is permanent, at least in our lifetime, but we, the people, are still here, and like Kaho’olawe, we will continue to repair ourselves within our community and remain beautiful and resilient.

This is also one of my zoom backgrounds. Let’s say, its a conversation starter. If you want to read more work on topics like this, check out these open access articles. As always, please share your thoughts!

• Spencer, M.S., Fentress, T*., Touch, A.*, Hernandez, J*. (2020). Environmental Justice in the Pacific:  An indigenous, anti-colonial perspective.  Human Biology Open Access Pre-prints 176. https://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/humbiol_preprints/176 
• Hernandez, J.* and Spencer, M. S., (Eds.), “The future of research Is Indigenous: Culturally grounding our Indigenous scholarship” (2020). Human Biology Open Access Pre-Prints. 172. https://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/humbiol_preprints/172